Sunday, May 31, 2009

Now, we hear all the time that North Korea's Kim Jong II is a despot, a terrorist, a tyrant, a nutjob....you know, all the names conservatives like to call misunderstood indivduals who turn a nation into a concentration camp.But maybe the liberals have a point here; after all, perhaps if Kim Jong got more respect and attention for his real talents, he wouldn't be threatening the world with nuclear war.What talents are those, you may ask? Why, apparently, he is the greatest golfer in the world. No, really. Well, if you believe Kim's media apparatus, anyway...from Phil Mushnick:It was in 2003 that North Korea's state-controlled news agency reported that Kim had played his first round of golf, finishing the 18 holes at 38 under par, which stands to reason given the 11 holes-in-one he made. Not bad for a beginner.

The same news organization reported that "Dear Leader" typically has several holes-in-one every round he plays. Yeah, well he's streaky that way.

North Korea at the time had only one course, a par-72 that played very long, 7,700 yards. So Kim, then 61, on that first day he played, routinely aced a few par fours and perhaps even a par five, to finish with a 38-under 34, or roughly 30 strokes better than the best pros on their best day.The World Tribunedutifully reported:If the official government media is to be believed, Kim is easily the greatest golfer the world has ever seen. Seem like the North Korean media is trying a bit too hard? Well, how about the American media's reporting on Barack and Michelle ("let them eat $540 sneakers") Obama's recent six-figure datein New York City:As the motorcade left the West Village and drove up Sixth Avenue to the theater, crowds of people, at times about eight deep, gathered on the sidewalks of the blockaded streets to wave as the Obamas passed. Some cheered. Cab drivers opened their doors and stood on the frames of their taxis to glimpse the president and first lady.The Obamas left the theater after the play and were greeted by more cheers from enthusiastic bystanders along New York streets as they headed back for the flight to Washington.

If I may paraphrase:"If the official government media is to be believed, Barack Obama is easily the most popular president the United States has ever seen... "

Saturday, May 30, 2009

A picture is worth 1000 words...all of them biased, of course, when produced by the mainstream media.

Here's a snapshot from a few years back of George W. Bush and his pick for the Supreme Court, Samuel Alito:

And here's the AP picture currently running of Barack Obama and his Supreme Court pick, Sonia Sotomayor:

What's the matter, white men don't smile? Or is the photographer here displaying his biases, by showing Baracky and his Sonia with big, happy smiles, full of love and empathy? Note Barack looking down proudly - a Big Daddy for us all, with Sonia as a mother figure that will guide us with wisdom and caring.

While Bush and Alito are shown as a couple of crusty old suits - unfeeling, uncaring, looking more like CEO's counting out a balance sheet than a President and a Justice.

Personally, I like the Bush/Alito pic better anyway. I don't need surregate parents, I need a chief executive and a legal scholar.

Friday, May 29, 2009

So Barack is going to the Buchenwald Concentration Camp, less of a Nazi slaughterhouse and more of a slave labor camp for most of WWII. Still, over 56,000 people losts their lives in this horriffic place (which also housed famed Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel). What will Obama do there? Offer heartfelt condolences and a "never again" speech (which he will likely tie in to every so-called "oppressed" group on the planet, including the planet itself)?Don't believe the hype, says Obama's own uncle. In an interviewwith German weekly Der Speigel, we hear from Charles Payne, who Obama made famous by claiming (incorrectly) that he liberated Auschwitz: SPIEGEL:Mr. Payne, early in June your great-nephew, President Barack Obama, will visit the former concentration camp Buchenwald, which you helped liberate at the end of the war. Will he be travelling in your footsteps?Charles Payne: I don't buy that. I was quite surprised when the whole thing came up and Barack talked about my war experiences in Nazi Germany. We had never talked about that before. This is a trip that he chose, not because of me I'm sure, but for political reasons.More, from Newsmax:Payne told Spiegel that he was shocked to see his war experience, especially his "liberation" of a concentration camp, used in campaign commercials. He said he had never spoken with his nephew about the matter, nor did Obama ever express any interest in Payne's experience.

“I was quite surprised when the whole thing came up and Barack talked about my war experiences in Nazi Germany,” Payne said. “We had never talked about that before.”

Payne doesn’t know where Obama came up with the fictitious Auschwitz connection...

“He couldn't have gotten it from me since we had never talked about this particular episode in the war,” said Payne.But to Obama (and to liberals in general) it's less about caring, and more about being percieved to be caring. His own flesh and blood says he never asked, never cared, about the Nazi carnage. But now that it affects Barack, Barack has to sound as if he cares, and with the help of the TOTUS and a gullible Euro audience, he will.But don't be fooled. There is nothing from the heart forthcoming. Only political calculation, as his uncle states. Then Baracky is off to Dresden, to do...what? Apologize for the Allied firebombing of this Nazi industrial city? Compare the Allied attack against the Axis war machine to the German enslavement and murder of millions of civilians, and finding them morally equivilent?Just wait. Obama may not care a whit about physical carnage, but he is about to show us what a moral atrocity looks like...

Estrada was married to Laury Gordon Estrada until her death at age 46 on November 28, 2004.And what happened to Estrada?Unable to block Estrada's nomination in the Senate Judiciary Committee after the Republican Party took control of the Senate in 2003, Senate Democrats used a filibuster to prevent his nomination from being given a final confirmation vote on the full Senate floor. Although a filibuster had been used in 1968 to prevent the elevation of Associate Justice Abe Fortas to the position of Chief Justice of the United States,Estrada's filibuster was the first ever to be used against a Circuit Court of Appeals nominee.The Democrats would not even grant Estrada a vote — up or down. They blocked him entirely, on ideological grounds. And hsi racial makeup? Perhaps he was blocked directly because of it - after all, they couldn't allow the Republicans to fast-track Estrada and thus get credit for naming the first Hispanic to the Supreme Court.Where's the screaming about Estrada's back story? Where's the finger-pointing of "racism" pointed at the Democratic leadership?Jay Nordlinger:Look: Vote for Sotomayor if you want to, because you like her views. But cut the crap about American stories. Such stories didn’t matter much when Miguel desired to serve.The Republicans should bring this up, again and again and again. If only to point out the hypocrisy of the Left, and the media, as they inevitably scream about "hate crimes!" as the Republicans perform their due diligence and examine the questionable record of Sonia Sotomayor...

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Andrew Ferguson at The Weekly Standard writes a scathing take-down of the media industry, as witnessed from his seat at the "Helen Thomas Awards", where Katie Couric was given an award for...reading the news off of a cue card.Ferguson first takes aim at the redesigned Newsweek, which editor Jon Meachem declared to be "non-partisan". OK, pal, if you say so. But let's judge an editor on his words, shall we, and decide whether or not the following descriptionof the president - as seen in Newsweek - seems impartial:"As he turned to make the walk back to Air Force One," Jon wrote, "a breeze blew--and everybody scurried anew, to keep up with him. It was that kind of day--and it has been that kind of presidency: Barack Obama, moving as he wishes to move, and the world bending itself to him."Ah, OK....but Ferguson doesn't buy it, and points out:What Jon wrote, in fact, is the direct opposite of the truth. Even as the sentence was being written, the president was violating several campaign promises for the simple reason that he has had to bend himself to the world, as presidents usually do. Nice prose, but completely untrue. But the media is no longer in the truth-delivery business, they are in the "prop-up-Obama-at-any cost" business. It's too late, for to turn back now and expose the Thug-in-Chief for what he really is would involve the media admitting it covered up a lot of information about him in the first place in order to get him elected.They'll go down with the crooked, lying ship, rather than stand and/or perish with the truth.How far gone is the media? Grand dame Helen Thomas, at her self-titled award ceremony, rises to praise Couric, and lets loose the dogs of truthamongst the media cognoscenti seated therin:[Helen] said Katie's skewering of Palin had ensured that John McCain would lose the election to Barack Obama. You know how everybody feels about Barack Obama--he's the guy the world bends itself to.

"Katie had the right stuff to do that game-changing interview," Helen said. "After that, the ballgame was over."

Ah, I remember the good old days, when racism was something that would disqualify a person from higher offices. Now it's a requirement to hold one. First we have Barack Obama, spending 20 years in an anti-semetic, anti-white church. Now we have his hand-picked selection for the Supreme Court, one Sonia Sotomayor, who is a member of"La Raza" ("The Race"), a proudly racistradical Hispanic organization:As President Obama's Supreme Court nominee comes under heavy fire for allegedly being a "racist," Judge Sonia Sotomayor is listed as a member of the National Council of La Raza, a group that's promoted driver's licenses for illegal aliens, amnesty programs, and no immigration law enforcement by local and state police.According the American Bar Association, Sotomayor is a member of the NCLR, which bills itself as the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the U.S. Meaning "the Race," La Raza also has connections to groups that advocate the separation of several southwestern states from the rest of America.A Seperatist group? really? Can you imagine the frothing rage we would see out of the media if this potential justice had been a white man of the South?More:As WND previously reported, La Raza was condemned in 2007 by former U.S. Rep. Charles Norwood, R-Ga., as a radical "pro-illegal immigration lobbying organization that supports racist groups calling for the secession of the western United States as a Hispanic-only homeland." Norwood urged La Raza to renounce its support of the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan – which sees "the Race" as part of an ethnic group that one day will reclaim Aztlan, the mythical birthplace of the Aztecs. In Chicano folklore, Aztlan includes California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and parts of Colorado and Texas.In light of this new information, this comment from Sotomayor now makes sense:"I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."Well, I guess it's time for the white man to learn his lesson, at the hands of Sotomayor and Obama. We elect people that look different from us based on good faith in their character and leadership, not the expectation that they will take vengence on us for centuries-old misdeeds, both real and imagined.How long will America take this punishment from their leaders? Even guilt is a rope that wears thin...

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

If Barack Obama was trying, completely and fully, to fulfill every requirement as outlined in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged to destroy the United States, he couldn't have done a better job.Let's look at his nominee for the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, and her perceptionof what being a judge - and justice - is all about:In a rambling 2001 speech, she disagreed with a colleague who thought judges should transcend their "personal sympathies and prejudices." Sotomayor said, "I wonder whether achieving that goal is possible in all or even in most cases."She argued that "the aspiration to impartiality is just that -- it's an aspiration because it denies the fact that we are by our experiences making different choices than others." In sum, she said, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."So impartiality is impossible, life experience trancends law, to feel is better than to think. This is what Barack Obama is trying to do to what was once the law in the United States. He - along with Ms. Sotomayor - is pulling the blindfold off of Lady Justice, and whoring her out to meet their political ends.Let's go to Atlas Shrugged, and the story of the book's great legal mind, Judge Narragansett, who left the bench after a controversial case:Midas Mulligan owned the most successful bank in Chicago, Illinois, Hunsacker applied to Mulligan for a loan, and Mulligan refused. In his refusal, Mulligan told Hunsacker that his business record made him an extremely bad prospect for running a vegetable pushcart, much less a large factory that employed six thousand people...Hunsacker, furious at the refusal, filed suit against Mulligan. He made a claim that the narrative describes as "discrimination."Judge Narragansett, in charging the jury in that case, urged them, as strongly as the court rules allowed, to find for the defendant. He pointed out that qualifications on paper were only half the story of a loan application; the other half was risk, and Lee Hunsacker and his partners were, quite simply, bad business risks. And regardless of any particular person's grounds for assessing such risk, it was for Midas Mulligan and only Midas Mulligan to assess the risk that he should take. In Narragansett's view, freedom to trade included freedom not to trade, on any grounds whatever, rational or irrational. Hunsacker's attorneys took exception to Judge Narragansett's jury charge, and appealed the judgment. The appellate court reversed the judgment...The judge did not take the reversal lightly, and leaves the bench and disappears. He explains why, later:"I quit when the court of appeals reversed my ruling. The purpose for which I had chosen my work, was my resolve to be a guardian of justice. But the laws they asked me to enforce made me the executor of the vilest injustice conceivable. I was asked to use force to violate the rights of disarmed men, who came before me to seek my protection for their rights. Litigants obey the verdict of a tribunal solely on the premise that there is an objective rule of conduct, which they both accept. Now I saw that justice was to consist of upholding the unjustifiable. I quit-because I could not have borne to hear the words 'Your Honor' addressed to me by an honest man."Back to real life - sadly. Sonia Sotomayor is now likely headed to the Supreme Court, the court that would hear the likes of the appeals above. And there is no doubt she would rule exactly as Ayn Rand's fictional appeals court had.How many good men will leave the bench - to be replaced by activists - because they feel that the law has been perverted? What will be left of the rule of law once Sotomayor's court reverses decsions based on the legal code, supplanted by decisions made by "moral empathy"?Atlas Shrugged ends with America in ruins, and Judge Narragansett editing the Constitution to eliminate some of its ambiguousness. Must we too see such destruction before we realize the folly of what is being foisted upon us?

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Robert Schlesinger ofUS News & World Reporthad a rooting interest in this weekend's box office, as he expected the returns to fit his preconceived political viewpoint:When Star Trek came out I blogged that it could represent (or be a leading indicator of) a change in the national mood...The post-9/11 era movies were traumatic and stressful but occasionally relieved by success or fleeting happiness. One could describe Star Trek as a Barack Obama movie and the others as Dick Cheney flicks, tonally speaking.I haven't yet seen Terminator: Salvation, but judging by the reviews, it strikes me as a throwback movie—a relic from the post-9/11 films. The bad guys are winning; the hero is dour and angry (is literally Batman, in fact); everything is destruction and decay..

I'll be curious to see what kind of business Terminator does both this weekend and going forward, especially as compared to Star Trek. I'm not sure the film will suit the country's mood, but we'll see.....

Schlesinger is not the only one to call Star Trek a "Barack Obama" movie; the cult of "Obama as the cool, collected, logical Spock" has been circulating within the media elite(exclusively) for a while now. The New York Timesreview contains this leap of political faith:

Mr. Abrams doesn’t venture into politics as boldly as Mr. Roddenberry sometimes did, though it’s worth noting he does equate torture with barbarism.

Yeah, OK. [SPOILER!!] The torture inflicted by the Romulans on their one captive consists of putting a insect in the captain's mouth (OK, gross). What our faithful reviewer doesn't speculate on is what would have happened if the Enterprise crew had gotten hold of a Romulan who had the capability to give them information regarding the device that was about to destroy Vulcan. Play nice and allow six billion to die, or put a bug in his mouth and save a civilization? This possibility is never raised, of course, doesn't fit the reviewer's narrative....

(note: this post was first published May 3rd, 2009. As I feared, Sonia Sotomayor has been pickedby Obama for the open SCOTUS seat...)The papers in New York are all talking up the possibility of Barack Obama nominating Bronx girl Sonia Sotomayor of the 2nd Circut Court to fill the soon-to-be empty seat of the retiring Justice David Souter. Made famous primarily for ending the 1994-95 baseball strike by siding with labor, she was originally appointed by President Bush I, then evelated to the 2nd Circut by President Clinton. Which led to a bit of a nasty confirmation hearing:Some Republicans were convinced Clinton was promoting her to the 2nd Circuit so he could later move her and her allegedly liberal views to the Supreme Court. She was eventually confirmed 68 to 28. A true-blue liberal grudge-holder 'till the end, she never forgot or forgave the rough treatment she received from Congress. Which leads us to this gem, the single reason - beyond any other - that she must not be allowed to sit on the Supreme Court:Today, even after she won Senate approval and is prepared to begin work in the 2nd Circuit, she remains angry at what she says was the Republican stereotype of her: she's a woman, she's Latina, she must be a bleeding-heart liberal.

"That series of questions, I think, were symbolic of a set of expectations that some people had [that] I must be liberal," she said. "It is stereotyping, and stereotyping is perhaps the most insidious of all problems in our society today."Let's play that last part again, folks!"...stereotyping is perhaps the most insidious of all problems in our society today."

Really, your Honor?

Can you imagine where that mindset will take her when interpeting the Constitution from the nation's highest judicial seat?Unqualified - right off the bat...

Sunday, May 24, 2009

First, let me give kudos to the mainstream media. While Nancy Pelosi and Robert Gibbs stammer about, trying to explain away her increasingly bizarre public statements as well as flat-out lies, the media has come up with their own angle to fend off attacks against the increasingly embattled speaker: To criticize her is to be misogynist.Politico reads way, way too deeply into an anti-Pelosi RNC video which uses a Bond theme:The RNC video, which begins with the speaker’s head in the iconic spy-series gun sight, implies that Pelosi has used her feminine wilesto dodge the truth about whether or not she was briefed by the CIA on the use of waterboarding in 2002. While the P-word is never mentioned directly, in one section the speaker appears in a split screen alongside the Bond nemesis – and the video’s tagline is “Democrats Galore.” It's outrageous!“They can’t seem to distinguish between a backroom smirk among the boys and something you put out in public,” says former Hillary Clinton senior adviser Ann Lewis of the RNC video.“It’s an attempt to demean your opponent, rather than debate them. If they’re serious that this is an issue of national security, then you’d think that one would want to debate it on the merits,” she says. “It’s almost as if they can’t help themselves.” Really? What about the psychological (and quite public) rape of Carrie Prejean, who dared to leave the liberal plantation on the gay-marriage issue? Was it David Axlerod that called her a "dog"? I wrote on the Democrat/Liberal/media rape of Prejeana while back:For some reason, when liberals see a Sarah Palin or a Carrie Prejean, the impulse immediately is for the lowest road possible: not to engage them, but to defile them. Not to prove them wrong, but to humiliate them in the vilest way possible. The immediate, insatiable urge of the Left is to wreck a female adversary so completely that no one can look at them the same way; so that anyone who sees their victim will see the marks on them and turn away in disgust or openly mock with rightous venom, and to hopefully so emotionally destroy their female "enemies" that their self-esteem is ravaged, and they slink away from public life, alone and ashamed.Or the treatment allotted to Sarah Palin:There is language being used by some segments of the news media toward Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin that very likely wouldn’t be tolerated if she were not a Republican and a conservative. For example, here is the lead of a Sept. 4, Associated Press story about Gov. Palin: “With a forceful speech that served as her introduction to millions of Americans on Wednesday, Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin seduced many on television who had spent days doubting her candidacy.” So the smearing of conservative females is OK - hey,they're conservative, they asked for it !- but criticism of the most corrupt, angry, and liberal Speaker in our history is anti-female because....she's a Democratic female.It's a variation of the old "to disagree with Obama is to hate blacks" memo, which was used to varying effect in election '08. In some ways the charges of misogyny here are even worse, given the ugly behavior the Left has used to silence any female who dares to leave their thought-group.Projection of their own hatreds onto Republicans? With the media acting as a enabler? It's a sad, hateful display by both, and further evidence of how liberal leadership - in politics and culture - is leading our nation down a coarse and destructive path...

Thursday, May 21, 2009

From the "Gee, what a f*cking suprise" file, we take a look at a recent list posted by the National Motorists Association. Put out as a warning to all before the holiday weekend, they aim to determine the best and the worst states when it comes to exploiting the motoring public.Criteria usedwas as follows:These state rankings were calculated using seventeen criteria related to specific traffic laws, enforcement practices, and the treatment of traffic ticket defendants. The rankings are designed to provide guidance to travelers who do not want their vacation ruined by speed traps, arcane laws or “kangaroo” traffic courts.

Full List Of State Rankings From Worst To Best

1) New Jersey2) Ohio 3) Maryland 4) Louisiana 5) New York 6) Illinois 7) Delaware 8) Virginia 9) Washington 10) Massachusetts My experience in a New Jersey Kangeroo Court... Monmouth County/Spring 2006:Me:Your Honor, I plead not guilty to this $180- ticket!Judge: Court will reduce fine to $150- plus $35- court costs.Me:But...But...Judge: Next! (bangs gavel)Me:"What The Fffffffffff....Judge: (bangs gavel, harder)Baliff: (grabbing my arm) One more time with the gavel and you spend the rest of the week in County!Me: (after paying the fine and leaving the courthouse) "....uuuuuuuuuuuucccccckkkkkkkkk !!!"True story. Welcome to Jersey, wher every cop is a revenue collector, and every judge a thief...

With the Republican primary for the governor's race coming up in a few weeks, it may be all overbut the shouting:Two weeks before the primary in the New Jersey Governor's race, former federal prosecutor Christopher Christie leads former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan 56 - 33 percent among likely Republican primary voters, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. That's a big hill to climb. And speaking of big hills, Jon Corzine should be shopping for some hiking gear:Among all registered voters, Gov. Jon Corzine trails Christie 45 - 38 percent, identical to the results of the April 22 survey. ...In the Corzine - Christie matchup, independent voters back the Republican 52 - 25 percent, a 2-1 margin that has been consistent for several months. Never one to eschew dirty pool, Corzine is calling on the shadowy DC-based "Mid-Atlantic Leadership Fund" to sabatoge Christie's campaign:The Mid-Atlantic Leadership Fund, a Washington-based organization with ties to Democrats, has purchased about $900,000 worth of New York and Philadelphia TV ads attacking GOP gubernatorial candidate Christopher Christie. There has been speculation for weeks that Democrats would seek to influence the Republican primary for Governor by spending some money to beat up on Christie, with the hope that he can boost Steve Lonegan's chances to win the GOP nomination. But even the rabid partisans at Daily Koshave come to realize this is a lost cause:Contrary to the best hopes of some Democrats, it looks like conservative insurgent candidate Steve Lonegan is going to come up short in his bid against GOP favorite Chris Christie. Monmouth has Christie up by eighteen (50-32), Quinnipiac has Christie up by twenty-three (56-33). Quinnipiac compounds the wound by releasing a general election poll showing a consistent trend: both Republicans with leads, but Lonegan (42-40) more vulnerable to a comeback bid than Christie (45-38).Well, Dirty Jon's is not going to go down without a fight, and without spending an unprecedented amount of his own billions. But like we just learned in California, outspending your opponents 6-1 doesn't insure victory, or even prevent a landslide defeat...

Yesterday we posted this piece on how many additional Americans will be killedin automobile accidents under Obama's insane new CAFE standards:...the downsizing of the American fleet has contributed to around 2,000 extra deaths on the road at current CAFE levels, because smaller cars are generally less crashworthy.......the new policy will lead to around 800 more needless deaths on the road each year.So the current CAFE standards are already killing 2,000 people a year, and it will rise by around 40% under the new regulations. The killing fields of Obama's American highways....But the figures may be higher:You may take into consideration—though cars continue to get safer—a 2002 National Academy of Sciences study, which stated that vehicles following the Corporate Average Fuel Economy system's standards contribute to between 1,300 and 2,600 traffic deaths every year. How many lives will be lost to new government mandates? Who knows?Applying the 40% increase to 2600 gives us an addtional 1000+ deaths per year...Or perhaps this is a better wayto figure it:The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that every 100-pound reduction in the weight of small cars increases annual traffic fatalities by as much as 715.So figure out the weight reduction in the nation's overall fleet, and you can accurately predict how many people will be killed to serve Obama's ideology. We won't know that figure for a while, but we can say one thing for certain: It will be high.And since we are talking about blood for oil - a favorite canard of the left - why don't we use their favorite barometer?In contrast in the more than six years since the Iraq war began, there have been 4,296 deaths among American military personnel.Obama's attempt to reduce our use of oil will kill more Americans in three years - innocent civilians and children all - than were killed in the "horribly immoral" Iraq war, allegedly fought for...oil. And of course, Obama's war on American drivers will have no end, despite the casualties that will pile up on the roadsides....But this is about serving Obama's ideology, not about saving lives. Obviously, Obama is willing to sacrifice tens of thousands of innocent American lives, in order to assert his leftist dogma.We are the sacrifice Obama has been waiting for. With our lives, we will serve his radical ends.Change.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

We wrote a piece yesterdayon how Obama's new and aggressive fuel-economy standards were going to hurt the average consumer; let's drill down the numbers a little bit...Keith Hennessey has a list of "10 things you might want to know" about Obama's CAFE proposal. It's a finely researched piece; I'm going to excerpt three important facts that he proves out. First:The Obama plan will increase costs enough to further suppress demand for new cars and trucks. This will cause significant job loss, and probably in the 150K range over 5-ish years, with a fairly wide error band.So it could be even more. When discussing yesterday some of the effects of this plan on the average consumer, I failed to mention that decreased demand would naturally lead to job layoffs. But maybe that's what Obama wants; to get his union buddies off the government teet. Maybe.The second piece (again, replete with graphs and charts) points out the deceit and folly in linking theses standards to any kind of an enviornmental benefit:Imagine if the President had instead said today, “This new fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions rule will slow the increase in future global temperature seven thousandths of a degree Celsius by the end of this century, and it means the sea will rise six tenths of a millimeter less than it otherwise would over the same timeframe.” It loses some of its punch, no?Yes. And that's why it is fudged over, or lied about. And Hennessey, in noting that it was the EPA that won this battle, and not the NHTSA, prophesies doom:This bureaucratic power shift suggests a higher priority will be placed in the future on environmental benefits, and a lower priority on economic costs and safety effects, as we see with today’s proposal.And that addresses another point: How many Americans will be killed on the highways by Obama's ideologically-driven fuel economy standards? Plenty:...the downsizing of the American fleet has contributed to around 2,000 extra deaths on the road at current CAFE levels, because smaller cars are generally less crashworthy. The National Academy of Sciences confirmed this finding a few years back.Certainly, cars are becoming safer, but they would be safer still if they were allowed to be bigger and consumers given the choice between safety and fuel efficiency. Using the methodology of this CEI study from a few years back, applied to today's fatality numbers in a back-of-the-envelope calculation, the new policy will lead to around 800 more needless deaths on the road each year.More than are dying in Iraq or Afghanistan, to use a familiar frame of reference. Or perhaps we need to get used to chants of "More blood for less oil!"What a travesty. Thousands will die, hundreds of thousands will lose their jobs, and many automobiles will become unaffordable, all in the service of Obama's hard-left ideology. Alas, there is none among us to raise the alarm: Obama Fuel Economy Plan Gets Media Nod ....

As was expected, a number of tax-hiking and money laundering initiatives proposed by Governor Terminator and his bleeding-heart legislature were slapped downby the citizens of California:As expected, California voters were rejecting a package of ballot measures in Tuesday's special election that would reduce the state's projected budget deficit of $21.3 billion to something slightly less overwhelming: $15.4 billion, early returns showed.The defeat of the measures mean that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state legislature will have to consider deeper cuts to education, public safety and health and human services, officials have said.Propositions 1A through 1E were being defeated in early returns. Those measures seek to change the state's budgeting system, ensure money to schools in future years and generate billions of dollars of revenue for the state's general fund.The only measure voters were approving was Proposition 1F, which would freeze salaries of top state officials including lawmakers and the governor, was the only measure that was leading in early results.Looks like California taxpayers have finally wised up and realized the most basic tenet of economics: You can't spend what you don't have, and cannot create. Alas, the media is still stuck on stupid, and is lambasting the citizenry for their exercise of common sense. The LA Times leads with this:California voters exercise their power -- and that's the problemBy rejecting five budget measures, Californians also brought into stark relief the fact that they, too, share blame for the political dysfunction that has brought California to the brink of insolvency....They go on to quote the ususal suspects - politicians, liberal policy wonks, and pressure groups - to prove the voters are idiots:"We all want a free lunch, but unfortunately that doesn't exist," said former Gov. Gray Davis,...... voters' piecemeal decisions since the 1970s have effectively "emasculated the Legislature," said John Allswang, a retired Cal State L.A. history professor."They're looking for cheap answers -- throw the guys out of power and put somebody else in, or just blame the politicians and pretend you don't have to raise taxes when you need money," he said." This is what the public wants, and they deceive themselves constantly. They're not realistic."And who is realistic? Politicians like Barack Obama, who is opening up unpayable trillion-dollar deficits with a wink and a smile? Well, at least he can jam tax increases down our throat, much to the delight of the media...well, at least that's the tone ABCtakes in this report:...in California, the problem is even worse because of its sheer size and an unwillingness to raise taxes. Thirty years ago, Californians passed Proposition 13, mandating an almost unachievable two-thirds vote by the legislature to raise taxes.God forbid that spending be limited; somewhere, a heroin addict may miss out on his methadone.Well, if the media is roaring this loud, you know the people have done something right. Will be interesting to see how this is sorted out....

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

So the Great Green Hope has finally come through for his liberal base, and has imposed emissions standards on automobiles that -while doing little to clean the air - will fiscally strangleboth the consumer and quite possibly the car companies:The rules, which will begin to take effect in 2012, will put in place a federal standard for fuel efficiency that is as tough as the California program, while imposing the first-ever limits on climate-altering gases from cars and trucks.The effect will be a single new national standard that will create a car and light truck fleet in the United States that is almost 40 percent cleaner and more fuel-efficient by 2016 than it is today, with an average of 35.5 miles per gallon.Making California - a broke, disfunctional state - the national standard based on ideology is a bit questionable as it is. But speaking of broke, let's look at two things - first this, again from the NYT:The companies have declined so far to comment on the costs involved in meeting a fleet standard of 35 miles a gallon. For starters, the automakers will probably have to sharply reduce the number of low-mileage models, like pickup trucks and large sedans.And this piece of honest accounting from the AP:Consumers should expect to pay an extra $1,300 per vehicle by the time the plan is complete in 2016........Administration officials said consumers were going to pay an extra $700 for mileage standards that had already been approved. The comprehensive Obama plan would add another $600 to the price of a vehicle, a senior administration official said.

The extra miles would come at roughly a 5 percent increase each year. By the time the plan takes full effect, at the end of 2016, new vehicles would cost an extra $1,300.

That official said the cost would be recovered through savings at the pump for consumers who choose a standard 60-month car loan and if gas prices follow government projections.SO - car companies will need to reduce the sales of their SUVs and pickups as a way to make their fleets "average out" at Obama's oppressive new fuel standards. So for those of us with large families or with businesses that require SUV's or pickups, we will undoubtly wind up paying a significantly higher price for a vehicle that will still be in great demand but in minimal production. I'd fully expect that, under this government-jiggered supply/demand chain, SUV and pickup prices will rise in price by a minimum of 50%. But of course, that's what Obama wants.AND - on top of this, the average automobile will go up in price by at least $1300, and likely more. When has the government ever been honest about the cost of anything, anyway? Expect the increase to be closer to $2K on every vehicle sold by the time this fiasco goes live.BUT WAIT! - you say. With the automakers facing bankruptcy and the government already pouring billions of dollars into their bank accounts to keep them solvent, how can they afford to take on a program that will cost, by their estimates, anywhere between $47 and $80 billion dollars?THEY CAN'T. So the taxpayers will continue to pay for it, funnelling their ever-increasing tax burden towards the government controlled auto industry, which will then charge us an addtional $2000 to buy the products we have already financed. Nice racket. Unless, of course, there is a regime change and this scam is overturned. Then Big Auto goes to the Big Wrecking Yard, forever.THE FINAL INSULT - is that line about the amount of dollars saved based on "government projections" of gasoline prices. What happens if they fall, and it takes ten years rather than 5-6 to recoup the extra dollars spent on a government vehicle? Will the government then raise gas prices re: a gas tax to justify the exorbitant rise in the prices of automobiles? One thing's for sure - forget about any offshore drilling or exploration; that might increase supply, which would bring prices down, which would make people question the premuims the government is forcing them to pay.But I guess you can do all this in a one party-state which is in the process of taking over control of the private sector. Expect America's streets to look more like Cuba's: hordes of old American cars driving around due to the inability or lack of desire to purchase a new one.What a great future our Dear Leader is showing us!

Monday, May 18, 2009

At least they're smart enough to figure out that the "unbiased" plea is not gonna play in front of the judge of public opinion. So Newsweek has decided to create a newsmagazine for what editor Jon Meacham calls "his base", with a heavy emphasis on politics and public policy. Hmmm..so who exactly is his base? Perhaps Newsweek's recent writing style and editorial selection can enlighten us..from the Washington Post:The ideas that Newsweek is promoting are mainly left-of-center. The cover story in today's issue is a generally sympathetic interview with President Obama, written by Meacham, that describes Obama "moving as he wishes to move, and the world bending to him." An accompanying piece by Tina Brown on Nancy Pelosi -- who's just endured her worst week as House speaker over the waterboarding controversy -- calls her "fast-talking, formidable, high-energy and supremely self-confident." Earlier, in Newsweek's 100-day assessment of the new president, liberal columnist Jonathan Alter wrote, "Barack Obama has put more points on the board than any president since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933." Allison Samuels wrote this month: "I knew that Michelle Obama was already changing the way we see ourselves as African-American women. . . . What's remarkable now . . . is how quickly and decisively Michelle has taken on the issues that matter most to us." When Newsweek put a conservative's essay on the cover, it was by David Frum, assailing Rush Limbaugh under the headline "Why Rush Is Wrong." And when Newsweek took on Obama, it did so from the left, in a piece built around New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and his criticism of the president's economic policies. Honesty from the WaPo, although the story's original headline - "Newsweek Targets a Smaller, More Elite Audience" - probably hit too close to home. I nteresting to see what happens to Newsweek as they style themselves strictly for whom they consider "elites" - East/West coast liberals, government employees, and Beltway hanger-ons.Expect declining revenue to match declining readership, while whatever nonsense it prints will still be loudly hailed by its remaining customers - the op-ed page writers of the NYT and the WaPo.Even elites need reassurance....

In the name of "conservation", New jersey governor Jon Crozine has devised a plan - to be implemented in the highest energy-useage months of the year - to add a surcharge (also known as a tax) to ratepayers who exceed a predetermined amountof energy use:Corzine’s Board of Public Utilities is going to stick it to users of electricity in the name of conservation. Some utility customers are getting letters reminding them of the governor’s Energy Master Plan. It goes on to say Corzine’s BPU has approved a price charge for certain customers from June through September. It explains the letter went to customers who exceeded certain levels of use last summer. And who runs the BPU, incidentally? A Corzine ally named Jeanne Fox, who was appointed, then reappointed to lead this board despite numerous investigations of criminal and civil misdeeeds, including patronage and retribution scandals, not to mention rank incompetence in her position as president.And where will these increased energy fees, exproporiated from New Jersey's middle class, go? Well, Corzine will use them to fund some of his left-of-California welfare state initiatives, while the rest - well, this is Jersey, so don't act suprised - will be used for Ms. Fox and her pals to go globe-trotting:Hundreds of thousands of dollars of trips around the world have been taken by Commissioners to Africa, Europe, Asia, North and South America, and Australia. One commissioner even stayed in a hotel room that cost more than $600 per night. Another commissioner, over the course of a three year period, devoted more than 270 days to travel to: Latvia, India, Philippines, Romania, Nova Scotia, Mali, Australia, Azerbaijan, Hungary (three times), Belgium, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Ethiopia, Trinidad, Italy, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and ten states including eight separate trips to Florida. And this is why our electric bills will skyrocket this summer, while we're fed pious bullsh*t about "global warming" and energy conservations. We wilt in the heat, while Fox and Corzine jet around the world on our dime.Welcome to progressive New Jersey. Soon to be progressive America. Don't say I didn't warn ya...

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Seems as if Maureen Dowd was caught fairly red-handed plagerizing a prominent far-left blog, Talking Points Memo. For the curious, the passage lifted directlyfrom the blog's proprieter was:"More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when we were looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq."

Old MoDo just did a cut-and-paste, changed "we were" to "the Bush crowd", patted herself on the back and called it a day. Which brings to mind two questions:

- how much of Maureen Dowd - and the rest of the media's - own talking points come from frothing far-left blogs such as Talking Points? Does she balance her views out by reading, say, Powerline or The Corneror Drudge or Gateway Punditor even Instapundit? Yeah...that's what I think, too....

-how clueless is the emminent Miss Dowd about the internet and the blogosphere in general if she believes she can lift the significant original thoughts of others and simply claim them as her own without being immediately detected?

If MoDo can't come up with an original ugly thought by herself and needs to lift them from the left-wing hate machine, then she should be put out to pasture, permanently. And if the media as a whole is taking their leads from blogs like these, then the whole concept of an unbiased press is even more laughable than previously presumed, and perhaps we ought to re-think some of the protections these folks are given under law.Will she admit & apologize, or dodge, weave, and deny? Well, this is a liberal we're talking about, so expect this to somehow be Dick Cheney's fault by sometime tomorrow morning...Update: The Dowd op-ed linked to above now reads "An earlier version of this column failed to attribute a paragraph about the timeline for prisoner abuse to Josh Marshall’s blog at Talking Points Memo. " Still doesn't answer either of my two questions...Update II: Pathetic excuse, as expected, can be found here (towards bottom). Weak.